Archive for the ‘Tips & Tutorials’ Category

Updates to Yahoo! Calendar

Monday, April 22nd, 2013

Today, we’re rolling out an updated version of Yahoo! Calendar that’s cleaner and easier to use. Our intent with these changes is to give you more information in fewer clicks, so you can more easily manage your busy schedule and ToDo lists.

New Calendar Features:

  • View your entire day easily: Now when you go to the Day view, you can see events for 8+ hours without having to scroll down.
  • Specify the event location more quickly: You can now easily add the location of an event using the quick add feature.
  • Event previews: In Day view, easily get a preview of all the events on your calendar for that day, including important details like location and meeting organizer. To drill down on an event, just click once on the event entry and to edit, just double-click the event.

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New ToDos Features

Like many of you, I use the ToDos feature to organize my tasks and I’m excited about the updates we’ve made to the ToDos feature since now you can prioritize tasks across multiple lists.

  • Important and Urgent) to each ToDo. With new Priority View, you can see all ToDos across all ToDo lists grouped by priority. You can easily change priority of ToDos by dragging and dropping tasks from one priority section to another.
  • Quick ToDo Addition: Miss that feature earlier? Not anymore. In every ToDo view, you can quickly add a ToDo inline at the end of the section.
  • Marking as done: Like many of you, I love checking off a ToDo item off my list. Now marking a ToDo as done takes just one click.  Hover on the ToDo and click on the check-box to mark it as done. Satisfaction!
  • Postponing a ToDo: Many times we need to postpone ToDos to tomorrow or a later date. To make it easier, you can click on the Postpone icon on the right to push the due date out.

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These new features are rolling out globally today for Yahoo! Calendar and are available on calendar.yahoo.com or via Yahoo! Mail using the Calendar tab. Please check them out and let us know what you think!

 

Ashish Parnami

Sr. Product Manager

Yahoo! Calendar

 

Lean back with Yahoo! Mail for iPad and Android tablets

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

By Lee Parry, Senior Director of Product Management, Yahoo!

This morning, we introduced the new Yahoo! Mail for iPad and Android tablets. As we set out to develop these apps, we wanted to take full advantage of the unique aspects of tablet devices, like the beautiful screens and intuitive gestures, while also making it easier and more fun for you to read and manage your email. Below are our tips for using a couple of our favorite new features.

Enjoy a lean-back, magazine-style experience when reading your email.

  • Tap the full-screen button in the lower left corner of your message to expand it across the entire screen. If you want to reply, delete, file or star a message simply tap anywhere on the screen and Yahoo! Mail’s familiar icons will appear.
  • To move to the next message on your iPad, simply swipe, as if you’re turning the page in a magazine.
  • To flip through messages even faster, simply tap on the side of the screen to rapidly scan through your inbox.

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Focus on the messages you care about most with a new feature that lets you easily sort by sender in Yahoo! Mail’s split-screen view.

  • Select a message in your inbox on the left side of the screen by checking the box that appears with the email. You will then see that sender’s name appear on the right side of your screen.
  • Swipe on the sender’s name and you will see Yahoo! Mail’s familiar icons appear to delete, file, star or mark as unread or spam.
  • You’ll also see a plus sign that will indicate how many more messages you have from that sender. If you select that, it will pull all the messages from that sender and then you can star, delete or file them all at once. Just think – you can easily take control of your inbox with just a few taps.

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We hope these new features make email on your tablet easy and enjoyable. Check them out and let us know what you think!

Download Yahoo! Mail for iPad
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Download Yahoo! Mail for Android tablets
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Getting the Most Out of Yahoo! Mail for iPhone

Monday, February 11th, 2013

By Ash Sharma, Product Manager, Yahoo! Mail for Mobile

 

Like you, we often find ourselves checking email throughout the day while we’re on the go. If you’re using the new Yahoo! Mail app for iOS, here are a few tips to make it even easier for you to send and organize messages in Yahoo! Mail for iPhone.

Make sure you’ve got the latest version

We’ve issued a couple of updates to our iPhone app since December, so make sure you’re running the latest version of the app that’s available in the App Store.

Quickly delete a group of messages

We know that email can get unwieldy, so we give you several ways to keep it organized. To quickly delete a group of messages, tap the checkbox to the left of each message to select it and reveal a trash icon within the toolbar at the bottom of your screen. From there, you can delete messages individually, select all and delete, move messages to your personal folders, mark as spam, or change the status to read or unread.

Inbox

 

Sometimes even legitimate emails can set off alerts that mark them as spam. To get those back, open the spam folder and tap the checkbox to the left of each message you want to keep. Select the Not Spam icon shown within the toolbar at the bottom of your screen.

Disable push notifications

Don’t need notifications for your Yahoo! Mail app? Turn off push notifications in your device’s Settings. While in Settings, go to the Notifications screen and tap on Yahoo! Mail. Here, you can change the Alert Style to “none.” You can also change the settings for sounds or the badge app icon.

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Other problems?

If you’re facing intermittent issues, such as crashing, freezing, issues loading mail, etc., try resetting the app. To reset the app, sign in and go to the sidebar (the icon on the top left), then select Settings and Reset App.

If you have other questions or feedback, you can reach the Yahoo! Mail for iPhone team directly at aerogram-feedback@yahoo-inc.com.

Thanks for using Yahoo! Mail for iPhone– we look forward to bringing you more tips and features soon!

Refreshed Yahoo! Calendar

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

Today we are launching two new features on Yahoo! Calendar that make using the Calendar an easier and more seamless part of your Yahoo! Mail experience.

1. Yahoo! Calendar as a tab in Yahoo! Mail:

  • Currently, users access the Calendar by clicking on the Calendar link under the “Applications” section in the left panel. The Calendar would then open in a new browser window/tab.
  • To simplify the process (who wants more tabs open on their browser!?), we’re now making Calendar a permanent tab within Yahoo! Mail. So, as soon as you login to your Yahoo! Mail account, you will see a ‘Calendar’ tab right next to the ‘Contacts’ tab. This tab will remain there even as you navigate around to other tabs within Yahoo! Mail.

  • When you’re inside the ‘Calendar’ tab, you’ll be able to search for events/tasks on your calendar.
  • Additionally, you will be able to access ‘Calendar Options’ under the ‘Options’ menu in the header.  Options include the ability to share a calendar (like with your spouse to make it easier to align busy family schedules!) or import holiday calendars from around the world.

2. Sending RSVP response for Calendar invites from within Yahoo! Mail:

  • Now, when you receive a calendar invite from your friends, you can easily respond to the event organizer with ‘Attending’/’Not Attending’/’Maybe’, add comments and have the event added to your own Yahoo! Calendar.

  • You can also quickly check your availability by navigating to the day’s calendar through the ‘Check Availability’ button.   When you respond, you can also set a reminder for yourself so that you don’t miss out on fun events like ‘Make your own pizza party’.

  • When you open an invitation that has already been updated or cancelled, you’ll see an indicator telling you that ‘This event is out of date’ or ‘This event has been cancelled’.
  • Best part is the invitation feature works for calendar invites sent by organizers using any calendar client like Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal, Windows Live Calendar, Thunderbird and of course Yahoo! Calendar.

These features have begun to roll out to all of our global users. Try out these new additions to Yahoo! Calendar and check back often! We’ve got more features coming later this year.

Ashish Parnami

Sr. Product Manager

Yahoo! Mail & Calendar

Why foodies love email

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

I’m a foodie, and I love to immerse myself in anything food-related. Some of my favorite activities have included attending chocolate salons and shows, taking cooking classes in Vietnam, and picking cherries and peaches from local California farms. Over the years, my Yahoo! Mail has played a vital role in helping me grow as a chef because it makes the best recipe box. It stores recipes that I’ve found and personalized, it’s easily searchable, and it is the best way for me to share recipes with friends. Let me explain.

Store
I like to experiment with new recipes, and my email makes a perfect recipe box. Last week I had a craving for noodles in an Asian peanut sauce, and after some digging online I found a recipe that resembled what I remember my mother making from my childhood. The reviews were favorable, so I copied and pasted the recipe into an email, made direct edits based on the reviews I read from other home cooks (in the case of the peanut sauce, it was to go light on the honey and to add cayenne pepper for extra kick), and then sent it to myself. This unintended editing feature is something I actually really appreciate about storing recipes in email because personalizing recipes is important to me.

Search
Email is where I store almost every recipe that I have tried, liked, or aspire to try in the future. Searching through my recipe folder in my email is super-easy and fast, and it’s especially useful at 6 pm when I’m about to make dinner. When I’m at the grocery store trying to remember ingredients for my corn chowder, or at the farmer’s market with 4 pounds of gorgeous tomatoes wondering what else I need to make bruschetta, I’ll also use my iPhone to search for recipes that I saved years ago.

Share
Recipes are not only meant to be cooked, they are meant to be shared. Probably half of the recipes in my email folder have come from friends or people I met at potlucks/BBQs and other events. In a way, email has become my personal log of the people and events connected with a recipe. These days, I’m discovering new recipes and food ideas through my friends’ Facebook updates, often right inside Yahoo!Mail. Just the other day my friend updated her status asking for summer recipes that don’t require a grill. In the process of contributing my own favorites, I picked up a few ideas from her friends that I became excited to try. Into my email recipe box they went.

These are some ideas about how to use email to make your pursuit of culinary joy easier. Fellow aspiring chefs: Tell us how email has improved what comes out of your kitchen. Better yet, feel free to share your favorite recipes too! I’m always looking for new ideas.

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My noodles in peanut sauce

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Nancy Lai
Resident Epicurean
Yahoo! Mail Team

5 Ways Yahoo! Mail Can Help You Cope During the World Cup Elimination Round

Friday, June 25th, 2010

The bracket is set. Sixteen teams are through to the elimination round, 16 teams are flying home. If you think the World Cup has been an emotional roller coaster, buckle your seat belts because over the next two weeks the battle for world soccer supremacy is guaranteed to bring more cheers and tears around the globe. Only one team will remain standing on July 11. Will it be yours?

Speaking from the perspective of a soccer fanatic, I’ve become increasingly reliant on Yahoo! Mail to express the joy and pain of watching my team fight through the World Cup. And through these first couple of weeks, I have discovered ways that Yahoo! Mail can help me deal with the emotional roller coaster of the World Cup. Here are 5 tips for how you can use Yahoo! Mail to help you through the elimination round:

1. Tell the world how you feel through your status message
Yahoo! Mail lets you post status updates that will appear on in places like Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Pulse. You also have the option to expand your reach by sending updates to your Facebook page through Yahoo! Mail. This is a good way to plan an event or poll your friends about the referee’s sanity. More importantly, it’s a way to find an audience as you scream in joy or despair.

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2. Wear your colors
Got a Yahoo! Avatar? Dress up your virtual alter-ego with your team’s colors. Through our Yahoo! Avatars page you can choose from a collection of jerseys from teams that qualified for the next round, including England, Brazil, Argentina, USA, Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and France. Oh, wait… scratch France. Or you can hoist the trophy with the FIFA avatar.

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3. Search for photos in the Flickr application
Yahoo! Mail gives you the breadth and depth of Flickr through an application that you can launch in your email experience. Flickr is a great tool for World Cup viewing because it gives me a way to soak in the spirit of the game from a fan’s perspective. With so many camera phones on hand inside and outside the stadium, there’s bound to be some photos of the game making their way into Flickr. If you find something you like, you can automatically embed it into your email message and send it around to your friends. Note– this feature is only available on the new Yahoo! Mail.

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4. Keep up with news from the Today module
The What’s New page is the place for news and status updates in your Yahoo! Mail session. Check back for updates and post-game articles to dig deeper into the details of the game.

5. Send some personalized smack talk to a friend
My friend George is from Ghana, so I have already saved a draft email of some juicy smack talk once USA scores on Saturday. It reads, “Dear George, GOAAAAAAAAL!!!!!” Since I’ll be at a bar or a friend’s place during the game, I’ll be able to access my draft folder by logging in from my Motorola Droid or from a friend’s iPhone. Man, I hope I didn’t just jinx my team.

Enjoy the next two weeks. There will be plenty of surprises leading up to the final game on July 11. Hopefully this year there won’t be any head-butting.

Jim Hu
Product Marketing Manager
Yahoo! Mail

Changes to Yahoo! Mail Options: Disposable Email Addresses

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Disposable Email Addresses in Yahoo! Mail (you might also know them as Addressguard) are a great way to help keep your Inbox free from spam. They are email addresses that you create and give out if you don’t want to give out your primary email address. Messages to your disposable email addresses are delivered to your Inbox or a folder you choose, and you can simply delete them if they start to receive spam.

If you’re like me and you use Disposable Email Addresses in the fight against spam, then I want to let you know about some upcoming changes to your Disposable Email Addresses. First of all, you probably know to look for the Disposable Email Addresses in the Spam section of Yahoo! Mail Options (click the ‘Options’ link in the top of your Inbox and then click ‘More Options’ or ‘Mail Options’). Soon, we are giving ‘Disposable Email Addresses’ its very own place on the Mail Options Screen. Let’s have a look:
DEA
(Please note: If you don’t see ‘Disposable Email Addresses’ as an option in the left-hand menu, you will need to sign up from the ‘Spam’ section of Mail Options.) Creating a Disposable Email Address is really very easy. Just click the ‘Add Address’ button at the top of the screen and an easy to follow wizard will walk you through creating your Disposable Email Addresses.

There are a few other changes as well. So let’s walk through each of them:

  1. Changes to ‘Spamguard’ settings: In the current version of Disposable Email Addresses – I’m going to abbreviate them to DEA’s now – you have the option of choosing whether you want to turn the ‘Spamguard’ setting on for each individual DEA. With the upcoming changes, all DEA’s will take the Spamguard setting that you have set up in the Spam section of your Yahoo! Mail Options. That means you have will have one global Spamguard setting for your entire Mailbox and you can control it from one central location. How’s that for easy?
  2. Changes to the delivery options: Now, when you set up a DEA, you have an option to move messages addressed to your DEA to your Inbox or any personal folder that you’ve created. With the new DEA’s you can still do that, but now you will have to use a filter. After you create your DEA, just click the link ‘Manage Filters for Disposable Addresses’. That link will take you to the ‘Filters’ section of Yahoo! Mail Options. Create a new filter, then just put your newly created DEA in the ‘recipient’ field and select the folder you want it delivered to. (Please note: as a consequence of this change you will have to set up new filters for your current Disposable Email Addresses.)
  3. Changes to the ‘Sending Mail’ option: Our current DEA creation lets you pick an option to send email from a DEA. With the new version of Disposable Email Addresses you will now have the option of sending mail from all of the DEA’s you create. When you compose a new mail, you can find all your DEA’s in the ‘From:’ pick-list.

These changes to your have already begun to roll-out to Yahoo! Mail Users. If you don’t see these changes in your Yahoo! Mail Options right now, they should be showing up soon. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our Customer Care team.

Status Update: Share With Facebook Friends While Checking Yahoo! Mail

Monday, March 29th, 2010

If you use Facebook, Yahoo! Mail is getting better for you! As you may have heard, Yahoo! is putting a big focus on bringing you more social features, and this evening Yahoo! Mail is rolling out another handy way to connect with your friends. In select markets, we’re adding the ability to update your Facebook status right from Yahoo! Mail and see your friends’ Facebook profile photos when they email you. This quickly follows the feature we added last month that lets you easily import your Facebook friends’ email addresses to Yahoo! Contacts.

To turn on these features, first link your Yahoo! and Facebook accounts by clicking on the “Add to Facebook” link in the status section on the What’s New page in Yahoo! Mail.Add To FB Link In Status

After you log in with your Facebook credentials, you are good to go! Here’s what you’ll be able to do right from Yahoo! Mail:

Update your Facebook Status: Simply start typing what’s on your mind in the status box, and then choose where you want to share it – Yahoo!, Facebook or both.

User Typing Status In Mail

Now hit “Share” and it gets posted where you want, including Facebook!
Users FB Page Where Status Appears

See Facebook profile photos when people email you: With this feature, you will see people’s Facebook profile photos – if available – anytime someone emails you.  In addition, by clicking on the profile image, you will go right to that person’s Facebook page.Profile Img In Msg Header

Now, whether you want to send an email, SMS, IM, or update your Yahoo! or Facebook status, you can do it all from your Yahoo! Mail inbox. This integration of Facebook is just the start of how we plan to make it easier to do more right from Yahoo! Mail. Watch this space for more ways you can bridge your social worlds and Yahoo! Mail in the weeks and months ahead!

Send a Valentine’s Day e-card and be Sweet without the Calories

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Here’s a reminder for all the fellas out there (like me); Don’t forget that Valentine’s Day is coming up this Sunday (that’s the 14th of February). And of course a big Happy Chinese New Year!! Seriously though, I had totally forgot until just the other day.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to go running around looking for chocolates, flowers or trying to score that 8pm dinner reservation. With the Yahoo! Greetings app in the all new mail, you can send a Valentine’s card without even leaving your Inbox.

Let’s give it a try. Just click on Yahoo! Greetings in the applications pane of your Inbox. If it’s not listed there, just click the little plus sign next to ‘Applications’ and you can add it to your list.

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Once the application opens, you can find the right card to send. Select ‘love & dating ecard’ and click ‘go’ to see a list of possible Valentine’s cards. Scroll through the list of cards and click on the one that suits you. Fill in your details, give it the personal touch with your own message and then click send. That’s it, you’re done. Now you can go back to watching Sports Center highlights.

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Flowers are great but emails are too, so send your love without the thorns. Be advised, I am still getting chocolates and flowers (I like to cover all the bases).

Send Really Big Attachments with Yahoo! Mail

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Every now and again the need arises to send big files as attachments. Normally they never exceed 25 Megabytes, so you’re covered with Yahoo! Mail. But even in the case where you have one file, or even a bunch of files over 25 Megabytes, with the ‘Attach Large Files’ app by drop.io in the all-new Yahoo! Mail, you can attach files up to 100 Megabytes. So now there’s a way to share those home videos, large presentations and all your photos at once.

You can find the Attach Large Files app in the Applications section underneath your folders. (If you don’t see it listed, you can add it to your list by clicking the plus sign.) To get started just click on the ‘Attach Large Files’ app.

Applications

After you agree and then click to get started, you can right away begin using the app to attach and send up to 100 Megabyte attachments. It doesn’t have to be just one file, you can upload multiple attachments in a single go. Just keep selecting all the files that you want to attach and when you’re ready, click the ‘Upload and Compose Email’. The app will tell you how much more space you have available. It’s that simple.

Drop io app

Once the files have finished uploading, the Attach Large Files app will open up a new message with the files already attached. The files will be available for downloading for 30 days after you send them, and your upload history is saved so you can resend again if you like. And you don’t have to worry whether or not your recipient’s Inbox can handle these attachments because the attachment is stored over at our app partner drop.io.

It really couldn’t be easier. The only thing to note is for people that like to write emails in ‘Plain Text’. With ‘Attach Large Files’, you have to compose your emails in ‘Rich Text’, but the App will prompt you to change to ‘Rich Text’ if you are not already doing that.